Commercial ice makers have long been available for producing clear ice. A typical such ice maker is illustrated in Barnard U.S. Pat. No. 4,009,595 owned by the assignee hereof. Such an ice maker is intended for producing ample quantities of ice bodies and is not readily adaptable for use in a domestic refrigerator. Moreover, such an ice maker differs from those in domestic refrigerators in that it does not utilize a below-freezing compartment for maintaining the ice bodies in a frozen condition.
Ice makers for domestic refrigerators may produce ice bodies that are cloudy. This results from the ice bodies being formed in a tray wherein gases are trapped in solution in the freezing water. The commercial type ice makers discussed above produce clear ice because freezing proceeds from a cold surface into a water bath so that the freezing ice-water interfaces a surface from which gases coming out of solution can escape.
Apparatus have been disclosed for forming clear cube ice bodies in which a container holding a bath of water is moved in a cyclical manner to be proximate and remote from chilled fingers on which ice bodies are formed. Such an ice maker is not adapted to be placed in a freezer as the bath of water in the container would freeze, rendering the device inoperable. Moreover, such a device relies on mechanical, fixed structure which does not lend the device to be adaptable to varying refrigeration conditions.
Because the storage bin in a domestic refrigerator is contained in the freezer compartment, ice bodies are stored at below-freezing temperature. In order to prevent icing together of separate ice bodies it is necessary that the ice bodies must have dry surfaces when placed into the storage container.
The present invention is intended to overcome the problems discussed above.